Witness - [62]

‘Yes. I saw it was Danny, he was on the ground.’ A lump filled Cheryl’s throat. He should have been getting on the bus, going off to his rehearsal, playing his music, growing up, falling in love.

‘Were you shocked?’

‘Yes. He was a good kid; he wasn’t mixed up in any bad stuff. They should’ve left him alone.’ Her voice broke.

The lawyer thanked her and sat down.

Cheryl felt wiped out, tense, her back ached and she’d a metallic taste in her mouth.

After a moment the woman lawyer stood up, the round-faced one: she was defending Carlton. Cheryl almost blurted out a laugh when she introduced herself as Miss Mooney. ‘You say you knew Danny Macateer?’

‘Yes.’

‘You liked him?’

‘Yes.’

‘You knew Derek Carlton and you believed him to be involved in criminal activities in your neighbourhood?’ Miss Mooney spoke quickly, like she was spitting out facts, knew where she was headed. Cheryl sensed a trick, felt her belly twist.

‘So perhaps you thought blaming Derek Carlton for Danny Macateer’s death would be a convenient way to get rid of Derek Carlton?’

‘No!’ Cheryl said. ‘I only blamed him ’cos of what I saw.’

‘Really?’ Miss Mooney making her out to be a liar.

‘Yes,’ she snapped back.

‘Let’s take a look at what you saw, shall we? You claim you were on Faraday Street that day. What was the weather like?’

‘The weather?’

‘You don’t recall?’

‘Hot, really hot and sunny.’ Cheryl remembered the shimmer above the tarmac as they set out, how high the sky seemed, the big bowl of it and Nana’s roses full of perfume. Oh, Nana.

‘Which side of the road were you on?’

‘The other side from the shop.’ Vinia had come out of the shop, they’d crossed over. Milo was in his buggy. She’d turned the buggy away but that was after she saw the car.

‘And exactly where on the street were you?’

‘I don’t know.’ She had to be careful, Vinia was listening, Vinia who was now Sam’s woman.

‘You don’t know,’ Miss Mooney drawled as though this was exactly what she expected. Like one of the teachers at school, all sarky and disappointed in people. ‘What made you notice the car?’

Again she wasn’t sure what the right answer was. She hesitated. The goosebumps still prickled her arms but she was sweating too. ‘The noise, I think. It was going fast.’

‘How fast?’

‘Maybe forty?’

‘Forty miles an hour and the sun was high overhead, am I right?’

‘Yes.’

‘How far away was the car when you first noticed it?’

‘Not far.’

‘You say you don’t know whereabouts on Faraday Street you were – had you passed the hairdresser’s, were you closer to Abbey Street at the top or Marsh Street?’

Cheryl felt trapped. She had to say something. ‘Marsh Street, past the salon, I think.’ Being as vague as she dare.

‘Barely yards. I refer the jury to the map of the area.’ There was another screen in the court, a map drawn on it, streets marked. The woman moved a computer pointer to indicate Faraday Street. ‘This is reproduced in the papers you have,’ the woman told the jury. ‘A hot summer’s day, the car came out of the side road, Marsh Street, only yards away and was travelling at speed past you, the sun glaring off the windscreen, how could you possibly identify who was inside?’

‘Because I saw them! I saw Carlton. On my life!’

‘Was he wearing sunglasses?’ she asked crisply.

Cheryl’s mind scrabbled for the picture in her head. She’d been looking away most of the time, shielding Milo, eager to make herself invisible, not wanting any contact with Carlton and his mates.

‘I don’t know,’ Cheryl admitted.

‘You don’t know,’ Miss Mooney smiled. ‘And I put it to you that you don’t know because you didn’t actually see who was in that car.’

‘I did!’

‘What about when the car drove past a second time. Could you see the occupants then?’

‘There were two people still in it.’

‘Could you see them?’

Cheryl paused. She bit her tongue, reluctant to answer. She’d sworn to tell the truth. ‘Not really.’

‘Did you get the registration of the car on either occasion?’

‘No.’

‘You told the court you heard a shot, you then saw a car travelling at speed away from the direction of the gunshot and you didn’t think to get the registration number?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Cheryl said defensively.

‘You didn’t go to the police, that day, did you? You went home?’

Cheryl cleared her throat. ‘Yes.’ Like everyone else, she’d scurried away to hide.

‘You didn’t go to the police for eight months, in fact. Were you waiting to see if the police caught the culprits before you falsely accused Derek Carlton?’

‘No!’

‘The reward then. You were waiting for that – and you saw your chance to make money by coming here and telling us a pack of lies. Maybe settling an old score.’

‘That’s not true,’ Cheryl shouted. ‘That’s lies.’

‘I submit that you are misleading this court. You can’t remember where you were when you heard the car, it drove past you at such speed it would be nigh on impossible to see who was in the car, even without the likely glare of the sun on the windows. You claim Derek Carlton was the passenger in the car yet you are unable to tell the court whether that person was even wearing sunglasses or not. You see Danny Macateer lying dead after hearing gunshots yet you wander off home without any thought for reporting this supposed sighting-’